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Minors. Hollywood's child actors have also benefited from the radio boom. Though cautious handlers kept Clark Gable's female box-office counterpart, little Shirley Temple, off the air, 13-year-old Jackie Cooper (Skippy) last week landed a $10,000 contract, had to have it approved by a court. For Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Coal Co. young Actor Cooper will next month make a series of recorded programs with such of his older Hollywood colleagues as Fred & Paula Stone, Polly Moran, Patsy Kelly, Dolores Costello Barrymore, Hoot Gibson, Jack Holt, Elissa Landi. For working in Jackie's program, Cinemactress Anne Shirley has already been promised a $600 fee.
Gossip. Even a Hollywood Gossip, Hearst's Louella 0. Parsons, landed herself in the big radio money two years ago as guiding spirit of Campbell Soup's "Hol-lywood Hotel." Beside this weekly program, the soup-makers present an annual Yuletide broadcast in which Actor Lionel Barrymore (fora reputed $1,250) wheezes, growls, grunts and snuffles his way through the part of Scrooge in a dramatization of Dickens' Christmas Carol. Last week's "Hollywood Hotel" offered an adaption of Dadsworth with Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton. Next week: Norma Shearer as Juliet, to a radio Romeo as yet unchosen.
If for no other reason, "Hollywood Hotel" is notable because it is credited with having wangled $500,000 worth of free cinema talent since its inception, through the persistence of Gossip Parsons. Paying no money to weekly guest stars, Miss Parsons is supposed to bring ungenerous cinemactors into line through their fear of unfavorable publicity in the Hearstpapers. One of Hollywood's most derided and dreaded characters, chunky, many-chinned "Lolly" Parsons gives in her column an astounding daily show of uncritical gush. Great & good friend of William Randolph Hearst, Miss Parsons also professed great affection for Hollywood's grande dame, Cinemactress Mary Pickford.
Last March the Pickford-Parsons friendship struck a reef because Miss Pickford had begun paying real money ($1,000 to $3,000) for guest appearances on her "Parties at Pickfair" program in the interest of National Ice Advertisers Inc. "Lolly"' Parsons threatened to blackball anyone who showed up at "Parties at Pickfair." This epic controversy was terminated when the Pickford program went off the air. Meanwhile, under the guidance of famed Radio Producer William ("Bill") Bacher, a onetime dentist, with Crooner Dick Powell and "Lolly" Parsons as continuing talent, Campbell's clambake goes serenely on its way.
—Tvo largest: Columbia Broadcasting, 98 stations; National Broadcasting, 95 stations. —Latest of Radio's so-called "Crossley Reports " which attempt to determine the percentage of radio listeners attending a certain program during its time on the air, gives Major Bowes a rating of 27%. Nearest rival, Lux Radio Theatre, had 17.4% of listeners queried.